Too much incentive to stay dead

[Nifft]

I also have some "death reduction" methods available. Of primary importance up until now has been my fate point system. One fate point can be spent to instantly negate an attack that would kill you; instead you are staggered (at 0 hp).

This both reduces the number of deaths, and increases the use of "staggered" (which I've hardly ever seen occur naturally).

Cheers, -- N

 

[DragonBelow]

I suggest you use the alternate version of Raise Dead, etc as proposed by JD Wiker (it's a shame the game mechanics are not writing more stuff)

Basically, being brought back from the dead is traumatic but only temporarily, I use this IMCs:

http://thegamemechanics.com/freebies/TGM_DeadHeroes.asp

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

PCs can buy items in D&D so there's no reason why the DM should pick them. If he does shouldn't he pick the race, class and feats too?

In every game I've DMed or played, the treasure is either randomly generated or picked out by the Dungeon Master.

Sure, the PCs can sell the loot later, but at half-price.

Is this not the case in your group?

 

[Doug McCrae]

After discussing this with my group I decided to use three house-rules:

1) Die at -ve(10+Hit Dice+Con bonus) instead of -10 to make death less likely.
2) No level loss from Raise Dead.
3) New PCs start with less treasure than the Wealth By Level guidelines, probably 5450gp (the cost of Raise Dead) less.

2) + 3) make rezzing and starting a new character more or less the same. The feeling amongst my players was that PCs should always be the same level, dropping a level is too much of a penalty and results in the PC not being able to contribute.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I make death less likely to occur by doing a hero point/fate point/screw the rules once per game type thing.

Bingo.

Don't like characters accepting death?

Remove it from the game.

There's plenty of ways for them to loose, suffer, become NPC's, end their career, etc. that don't revolve around nixing 'em.

 

[AddizAbeba]

"divine intervention" kind of stuff

I had one of the characters (the wiz5, going for elem.sav(air) at CL6) die. He was grabbed by the neck by a choker and pulled to the ceiling of a cave. No-one had ranged weapons. Only the NPC sorcerer could reach it. Took too many rounds. choked to death.

I played out of the room a 'near-death' experience with him; he was in a big empty area, with cloud-like things in it. He heard a disembodied voice say "so young one, you died a little to soon. I'm going to send you back, but you must help us." Then he recovered with lots of coughing. Rest of party was sure he was dead, but suddenly he wasn't.

So it was 'divine' intervention, and made sure he'd bite to a quest I offered them (an invisible stalker, forced to do a job for a wizard, didn't want to and was failing), but it also set him neatly on the path to his prestige class elemental savant (air).

I also thought that choking to death right before you get on the path to being able to 'sustain without air' was quite fitting. Invisible Stalker told him: "I am now going to tell you how you can learn to never choke again."


The only real negative he'd got from this was a big scar around his neck (prints of the choker's grasp), which incidentally looks a lot like someone who was hanged and survived, and consequently easily branded 'criminal' by locals. He now wears a scarf all the time (a very nice and prettty silk scarf that costed him 100gp brewhahaha).

So, now 'raise dead' or new char issue, but a more quest-like solution. This is not always possible I do understand.